Feds look into how $320K fell off truck at Midway

February 17, 2006|By From news services.

Treasury Department officials are investigating how a shrink-wrapped bundle of $320,000 in cash "fell off" a baggage handling truck at Midway and ended up along an access road where a security officer found it, authorities said Thursday.

The money recovered Wednesday morning was part of a $1.8 million shipment from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington to the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago. The money was being transported on a commercial ATA flight, stowed in the baggage compartment along with other cargo and luggage, said Debbie Baratz, a Federal Reserve spokeswoman in Chicago.

Dunbar Armored was contracted to take the money from Washington to Chicago, she said. The cash was taken off the plane by baggage handlers.

At some point the bundle "fell off" the baggage truck, she said. Wrapped in two layers of red plastic marked with the initials of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the bundle of money looked like a red suitcase when airport security officer Sgt. Donald Wojtowicz spotted it about 8 a.m. The bundle was lying near the edge of the airport property, he said.

Wojtowicz said he found the bundle "20 feet north of a service road that runs adjacent to 63rd Street," which is the south border of the airport property. He picked the money up and immediately returned to his office.

Treasury officials are investigating the incident, Chicago police and aviation officials said Thursday. Authorities do not know how the bundle of money became separated from the other luggage or how it ended up near the edge of the airport property.

The Federal Reserve Bank eventually received all of the money in the shipment, but "we are still asking questions just to find out what happened and so it doesn't happen again," Baratz said.